Who to Follow on Twitter for News About #Ferguson, Missouri

It’s during weeks like this one that we are reminded that the Web is not just a place to find cute cat photos, but also, in urgent times, the most critical and immediate information. Last weekend, a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri, leading to a stand-off between protestors and local police. Since then, the Internet has lived up to its promise: Our Twitter feeds have been flooded with live, on-the-ground accounts by citizens, elected officials, and journalists on the scene in Missouri. In addition to Reddit’s live feed and hashtags like #Ferguson and #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, a heartbreaking user-generated collection of photos that tweeters imagine the media would use to misrepresent them, here are the individual Twitter accounts to follow for news about the protests.

@wesleyloweryWesley Lowery, a Washington Post reporter, was one of two journalists arrested on Wednesday evening in a Missouri McDonald’s. Lowery live-tweeted the events and continues to pursue the most important stories in the area.

@chrislhayes MSNBC has been aggressively covering Ferguson, and Chris Hayes had the first nationally televised interview with Dorian Johnson, a friend of Brown’s who has stepped forward as a witness—which aired before the Ferguson police had spoken with him, according to Johnson’s lawyer.
@anildash Peppering his journalism with eloquent tweets about the tragedy of the Ferguson story, Anil Dash’s account has been one of the most emotionally arresting to follow.

@trymainelee Pulitzer Prize–winner Trymaine Lee tweeted about being tear-gassed during a protest, and his reports of police activity in Ferguson have been harrowing.

@YamicheUSA Today reporter Yamiche Alcindor has been carefully documenting the protests, updating her account with photos and accounts of demonstrators and arrests.

@AntonioFrenchAntonio French, an alderman in St. Louis, had been steadily documenting the situation in Ferguson—that is, until his Twitter went quiet late Wednesday night. French was reportedly arrested for “unlawful assembly,” it turns out, but has since been released from jail, so you can expect his coverage to pick up again.